


Making Friends

by elsandry



Category: The Girl with the Silver Eyes - Willo Davis Roberts
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 13:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13054632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsandry/pseuds/elsandry
Summary: Katie's never had a friend before.





	Making Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [owlmoose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlmoose/gifts).



When everyone left, and they had the apartment to themselves again, Katie and Monica had a long talk.  They discussed the events leading up to her disappearance, but they talked about other things too, things that they probably should have talked about sooner.  It was a lot easier to get information from Monica like this than by eavesdropping.  Katie hoped that this wasn't just a side effect of her disappearance, soon to go away as things went back to normal.    
  
Katie suspected she would have been in a lot of trouble if Monica wasn't so relieved that she was safe.    
  
After that, it was several days before Katie saw Jackson Jones again.  She had been waiting for him.    
  
Katie quickly wrote a note - that was one of the new rules, letting Monica know where she was, even if Kate thought she'd be back before she was missed.  She left the note on the refrigerator and hurried outside to meet him.    
  
"I hope you didn't get in trouble for hiding me.  Monica said you might."    
  
Monica had said a lot of things, most of which Katie was still thinking over.  Katie didn't think Monica could really protect her from the police if they had been looking for her, and it was strange to know that Monica would try.  Strange, but nice, which described a lot of her life lately.    
  
"No, it's all right," Jackson Jones told her.  "Mom thinks I didn't know you had run away.  I told her I never saw the news report, and that's the truth."    
  
He was grinning as he said it, and Katie found herself smiling back.  "You mean you made sure you never saw the news report.  You're sneaky, Jackson Jones."    
  
"You have to be a little sneaky in a family that big."  Then he told her a story about waking up early to filch the last of the cookies.  As much as he griped about his siblings, it was his slightly older sister, the one closest to him in age, who had woken him up and helped take the cookies.    
  
  
After that day, it was an easy routine to fall into.  Katie met Jackson Jones outside and accompanied him on his route through the building.  Katie stood unobtrusively off to the side while he talked with the other tenants, and in the hall between apartments they would talk about anything and everything.  Katie didn't engage with them, but after a few weeks she noticed her neighbors smiling at her when they saw her.    
  
Mr. P. didn't smile, but Katie didn't think he smiled at anything.    
  
"I think being with you makes people behave more nicely to me," she told him.    
  
"It goes both ways," Jackson Jones said.  "I should be thanking you.  Having you around makes a lot of my customers less likely to try to weasel out of the money they owe me.  I think they realize how ridiculous they're being when there's a witness."    
  
Except for Mr. P, but that went without saying.    
  
"People are peculiar.  Believe me, I know about peculiar."    
  
Jackson Jones laughed at that.  It was the first time Katie had been able to joke about what she was, her powers, and it felt good to do so.    
  
  
Nathan thought her friendship with Jackson Jones was funny for some reason, and he teased Katie about Jackson Jones being her boyfriend.    
  
"Don't start, Nathan.  It's good for Katie to have friends," Monica said.    
  
"I'm too young to worry about a boyfriend," Katie told him.    
  
"See if you two are so calm about it in a few years," Nathan replied.  "You just wait, Monica, Katie might be a heartbreaker like you after all."    
  
Monica rolled her eyes and set their dinner, a frozen box lasagna, on the table.  Nathan clearly thought he was hilarious, and Katie didn't understand why.    
  
Katie told Jackson Jones many things.  Talking with him sometimes helped her understand Nathan, who apparently thought that teasing was a good way to show affection.  But Katie decided she would not be telling Jackson Jones about this conversation.    
  
  
Katie started the new school year with a confidence she'd never felt before.  Jackson Jones was not in her school.  He went to the junior high down the street.  His younger sisters did attend the same school as her, even if they were not in the same grade as Katie.  They waved at her when they saw her.  Katie had done her best to be unobtrusive during the sleepover, so they might not have remembered her from that, but their mother's reaction when she realized who Katie was made sure they would remember her.  Even if all of that hadn't happened, Jackson Jones' little sisters would have been nice to Katie for his sake.  It surprised her, how making one friend brought with it a set of friendly acquaintances.    
  
Katie wondered if their friendship was entirely fair.  Jackson Jones did so much for her without even trying, and Katie didn't know what she could do in return.    
  
She wondered about this, until one day when Jackson Jones was talking about his family.  He usually spoke of them with fond annoyance, but on that day, there was more annoyance than fondness present in his voice.  Finally, he wound down and sighed.  "Thanks for listening, Katie.  At home, sometimes it feels like no one listens to me unless I yell."    
  
He changed the topic to something more light-hearted after that.  Katie realized she didn't need to think about what to do for him, because she'd been doing it all along without realizing how much it helped.    
  
  
Katie never really had a friend before.  The closest she had to a friend was a girl a year ahead of her, who had sometimes eaten lunch at the same table as Katie.  They hadn't talked much, and Katie didn't think she would be missed.    
  
Now Katie had four friends, and at times it was overwhelming.  Eric, Dale, and Kerri would have been her friends no matter what, to no longer be alone and to finally have someone who really understood them.  Spending her weekends with them was wonderful.  Even when they weren't actively trying to read each other's minds, none of them were surprised by each other's actions.  They were so much alike it was almost impossible for them not to be friends.    
  
Jackson Jones was her friend simply because she was Katie.  Their friendship was something entirely different, and special because of that difference.  Katie hoped that the other three could find their own Jackson Jones someday. 


End file.
